The best DDR4 RAM

We look at several DDR4 memory bundles to find the best options for PC gaming.

Looking to make an easy upgrade to your gaming PC? A new set of RAM to boost your memory capacity is an affordable upgrade that can give you quite a bit of mileage depending on your current specs. 8GB of memory used to be more than enough for most PC games, but modern games like Battlefield 1 now recommend 16GB or higher.

After going through a swath of DDR4 kits, our best pick remains G.Skill's TridentZ RGB DDR4 kit. They perform well, use high-quality chips, and are individually tested. Best of all, we think it's the best looking RGB kit around. Add any of these sticks to your gaming rig and they'll gather some crowds.

Best gaming motherboards

PC gamers know how important RAM is when it comes to upgrading or building a new system. But with one of the most complicated technical spec sheets of all PC components, shopping for it can prove to be daunting. Beyond simple capacity, users have to worry about cooling, RAM channels, CAS latency and clock speeds too.

We’ve spent a great deal of time testing RAM kits to find the best options for PC gaming. If you’re looking to upgrade and reap all of the benefits of a newer platform like the Z370 or X299, here’s our top choices for DDR4 memory kits. Read our “How We Tested” section at the bottom to learn more about RAM and why we chose these winners.

The best budget DDR4 kit

Excellent value

Sleek low-profile design

Easy overclocking

No color options like HyperX Fury DDR3

One of the oldest memory manufacturers on the market, Kingston has developed a very strong name for itself over the years. The company’s gamer-focused “HyperX” brand may be newer, but just about every product of theirs we’ve tested lives up to the company’s standards of quality. The new DDR4 memory kits backed by a lifetime warranty are no exception.

The HyperX Fury Black 16GB may not be the cheapest DDR4 memory bundle you can find, but in our opinion it holds great value when you’re on a budget. This particular kit comes in the lowest available DDR4 speed of 2133MHz, but as extensive testing has proven time and time again, higher speed RAM yields very little improvements when it comes to PC gaming.

For those looking to take full advantage of what the HyperX Fury has to offer, some simple overclocking pushes its performance to match that of much more expensive options for DDR4 RAM. One of the awesome things about DDR4 is that it generally operates at 1.2V (down from 1.5V for DDR3). This means even the slightest voltage increases can give you quite a bit more power while still remaining cooler than DDR3.

We did some overclocking via small tweaks made in the BIOS, letting us bump the 2133MHz HyperX Fury kit to 2666MHz, 2800MHz and 3000MHz speeds with ease. With all of our overclocking tests, we found the HyperX Fury is quite resilient as it was perfectly stable at every level. With a less conservative overclock, 3200MHz speeds can also be easily achieved.

Seeing as how a 3200MHz 16GB kit can cost up to two times as much as the HyperX Fury 2133MHz, we found this kit to be our clear winner for value. If you’re currently running a DDR3 system with enough RAM capacity and speed, DDR4 won’t make too much sense unless you’re hoping to overhaul your whole PC. But with Kaby Lake processors just around the corner, now is the perfect time to switch as Z170 motherboard and Skylake processor prices are at an all-time low.

The best RGB DDR4 kit

Same height as non-RGB models

Five addressable RGB zones

Syncs with Asus aura lighting

No custom lighting modes (yet)

Light up RAM modules have been around for quite a while now so it was only a matter of time before someone added RAM to the mountain of RGB-capable PC components. That someone was G.SKILL and we couldn’t be happier about it. The recently launched Trident Z RGB has to be one of the most tasteful implementations of RGB lighting we’ve come across.

The Trident Z illuminates itself with five individually addressable RGB LEDs and a frosted diffuser that produces a soft glow which looks fantastic in just about any PC build. Available in a 16GB (2x 8GB) and 32GB (4x 8GB) kit, the RGB ram is based off of G.SKILL’s high performance Trident Z line and is available in speeds ranging from 2400 to 3600.

Despite its full RGB lighting, the Trident Z RGB 2400 series proved itself to be just as reliable as the non-RGB version while not requiring any kind of additional power to drive the LEDs. This is perhaps one of the most impressive feats as we’ve been told by other manufacturers before that RGB lighting on memory would be impractical due to potential signal interference. The only other RGB option we’ve seen is GEIL’s EVO X which does not feature addressable LEDs and requires an additional 4-pin connector.

When plugged in, the Trident Z RGB displays a standard rainbow effect by default. Once you install G.SKILL’s accompanying software, you are then able to sync the lighting on multiple modules and swap between 10 preset lighting patterns and an additional equalizer mode. While you are able to manually adjust the colors of the five lighting zones, you cannot yet create your own fully custom lighting patterns.

While some of us at the office have not been shy to express distaste for the current RGB craze in the PC hardware space, most of us could agree that the Trident Z RGB series looks pretty darn cool. Like any other PC component gone RGB, there’s certainly a premium that comes along with it. But since G.SKILL has created the first and only RGB DDR4 kit at this time, it is well worth consideration.

The best mid-range DDR4 kit

Affordable high capacity

42mm height for oversized CPU coolers

Excellent stock performance

Minor stability issues at higher speeds

When it comes to affordability and value, G.Skill’s memory kits frequently come to mind, as it’s typical to see their prices as the most competitive on Amazon and Newegg. While this kind of budget-oriented reputation often leads to disappointing performance and quality control, we’ve found G.Skill RAM to hold up exceptionally well over the years.

The G.Skill Ripjaws V is the second generation of the company’s DDR4 memory and it’s clear that they’ve listened to the feedback and criticisms from the customers. The new series is more affordable, faster and has been redesigned with a less tacky heatsink. We found the 32GB Ripjaws V kit to be the best option for a high capacity kit that features top performance out of the box.

Immediately without any overclocking the Ripjaws V did exceptionally well in our benchmarks, beating all kits below 3000 MHz by a decent margin while only slightly falling behind higher speed options. If you’re looking to upgrade to an X99 platform, this is where the kit really shines. Rated not too far below the maximum 3300 MHz DDR4 speed found in most X99 boards, the Ripjaws V 32GB is a great option for a quad-channel configuration.

For those looking to go the route of a Z170 upgrade, G.Skill RAM has always provided a decent amount of overclocking headroom. While this kit is already solid out of the box, we were able to achieve a 3200MHz and 3400MHz overclock relatively easily by bumping up the voltage to 1.4V. We had slight issues with stability at 3400MHz but we’re confident 3600MHz or higher could be achieved with more aggressive changes.

Given its out-of-the-box performance, the G.Skill Ripjaws V 32GB kit is hard to beat. Combined with its decent room for overclocking, this bundle made our favorite choice for the mid-range. It’s a very affordable way to make sure you have more than enough memory for any modern PC game and then some.

The best high-end DDR4 kit

Includes Dominator Airflow LED fans

Light bar upgrade available

Sleek aesthetics

High profile may get in the way on air-cooled builds

Expensive

Since its birth in 1994, Corsair has grown to become one of the leading brands in PC components and peripherals for both enthusiasts and gamers alike. The company has certainly expanded from its DRAM-making roots, but Corsair still manages to impress us with its innovation in memory.

The Dominator Platinum series has long held the crown as a premium choice for memory since it was introduced in 2012. Four years later and it looks like things are no different with the latest DDR4 modules. With patented DHX cooling, unmatched reliability and head-turning looks, the 32GB Dominator Platinum DDR4-3333 is our top choice for high-end memory kits.

It may be one of the most expensive options on the market, but Corsair’s Dominator Platinum DDR4 series is well worth the premium. As expected, our testing didn’t show too much of a performance gain vs. a competitor's 3200MHz kit, but the value in the Dominator Platinum comes from more than performance.

The included Dominator Airflow LED fans and Corsair Link integration already makes the kit stand out from the crowd. But once you consider the manufacturing process that includes hand-selected memory integrated circuits, the value really adds up.

While we weren’t able to overclock the kit too much considering the 3400MHz limit on our tested motherboard, we were easily able to run with tighter C15 timings. The increased cooling capabilities even allowed the Dominator Platinum to run at 1.45v while still remaining cool. If you’re in the market for a reliable memory kit that has all of the bells and whistles expected of a premium product, look no further than the Dominator Platinum series.

How we test RAM and others we tested

Contrary to what you might expect, RAM speed actually has very little effect on gaming performance. As many studies and tests such as this one conducted by The Tech Buyer’s Guru will show you, there is virtually no noticeable FPS improvement from a 2133MHz kit to a 3200MHz one.

Additionally, CAS latency (CL) which refers to the delay time a memory controller experiences when accessing RAM, can also be tricky for gamers. Measured in nanoseconds, lower memory latency is not something you’d even notice while gaming.

Testbench:

CPU: Intel Core i7-5960X

Motherboard: MSI X99A Godlike Gaming Carbon

GPU: Nvidia Geforce GTX 780

SSD: Samsung 850 Evo 250GB

Power Supply: Corsair CS850M PSU

As Crucial simply recommends, “Optimize your system by installing as much memory as possible, using the latest memory technology, and choosing modules with as much speed as is cost-effective and/or relevant for the applications you're using.”

Since this guide is focused exclusively for PC gaming, we didn’t want to bombard you with largely meaningless benchmark results and instead judged our winners on a blend of performance, overclocking stability, features, and overall value. (But if you're wondering, the benchmarks we used included AIDA64, MaxxMEM and RealBench.) Since most of the kits we tested scored nearly identical benchmark results, we’ve omitted the charts to keep focus on the important stuff. Of course, we also stress tested each build with hours of Battlefield 1 and Overwatch in true PC Gamer fashion.

We completed all of our testing using quad-channel configurations on an X99 motherboard, but our recommendations still stand for dual-channel and even single-channel configurations. If you’re unfamiliar, memory channels refer to the number of communication paths between the CPU and the RAM. Like roads on a highway, the more channels there are the higher bandwidth is available for the CPU and RAM to work together.

Dual-channel requires two or more RAM modules while quad-channel requires four or more. Most modern CPUs support dual-channel memory while X99 models support quad-channel. But when it comes down to gaming, the differences between dual and quad channel memory are basically nonexistent. Here’s a great piece on the (lack of) performance differences from our friends at PCWorld.

A final note when purchasing RAM, keep in mind that mixing modules can work, but we highly recommend purchasing identical modules or a full kit for better stability.

Competitors

Priced just a tad higher than the 2133MHz option, the 2800 kit is also a great choice but both options reach similar overclocking thresholds so we’d recommend going with the cheaper of the two. If you aren’t comfortable messing around in the BIOS, go with the 2800 kit if the price difference is small enough.

Like the Fury DDR4 series, the Predator offers killer stability and overclocking headroom. Unfortunately, the high price point makes it more worthwhile to get a 32GB kit of Ripjaws V or a 16GB kit of Dominator Platinums.

While Corsair’s Vengeance series still holds a great reputation for reliability and performs great, the kits are often priced pretty close to the Dominator Platinum. We’d highly recommend saving up a bit more to invest in the better bundle.

Priced similarly as the HyperX Fury DDR4 2133 kit, the Ripjaws V don’t offer quite the same overclocking headroom and flexibility. However, we often find deals on the 2400 Ripjaws making them a really competitive choice on a budget.

The top of the line G.Skill TridentZ series was a very close second to the Dominator Platinum. Overall, they’re excellent modules with high stock speeds at reasonable price points, but we were able to overlook the small difference in cost for the additional benefits the Dominator Platinum offers.

Priced higher than the HyperX Fury 2133MHz kit while offering slightly less performance, we’d find it hard to recommend the XPG Z1 series from ADATA. We still need to get our hands on the XPG Dazzle and its flashy LED bar which might be a better contender.

While Crucial’s M.O.D. memory monitoring utility is a huge plus for the Ballistix Elite series, mediocre overclocking stability had us preferring the more affordable Ripjaws V.

Future testing

While we may have covered some of the more popular memory brands, this guide is by no means a complete one. We still need to test kits from Klevv, Team Dark, Avexir, Patriot, PNY and more. We’ll be sure to keep you updated as we continue to receive new test kits. Be sure to let us know what your favorite DDR4 RAM is if we haven’t tested it yet.

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